Navigating The Parenting Labyrinth Of Your Teen's Online Behavior

Curtis Silver
, ContributorWriting on Consumer Tech & Social Media with a satirical, cynical edgeOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Image credit: me

There has always been a generational gap when it comes to tracking your children. Before Generation X started having kids, the general consensus was that if you instilled the right values in them, it didn't matter where they were. Then the internet was invented and suddenly we're freaking out when a kid rides the Subway alone. My father used to walk 12 miles one way, in the snow, wearing second hand boots to first grade every day.

In recent years the physical location of one's children has become a secondary thought to their online presence and behavior, mostly because as you are reading this your child is over there staring into the Matrix behind the glass of their cell phone. Where they travel online has become just as much of a point of contention as what they are doing when they get there. Parents are scared to let their kids alone in the park, so why are they so cavalier when it comes to letting them play un-tethered online? The question must be asked: how much do you really know about your child's online behavior?

There is an active and heated conversation when it comes to tracking a teenager online (as that is the age group we stress about the most). Some parents feel that the right values and moral code are enough, other parents use technology to put up a strict wall between their teen and the greater depth of social media and the internet. Others simply do nothing. This type of apathy can't be questioned or discussed, since only when something happens (no matter the severity, just the intensity of effect) do they break from their apathetic cloud. I'm not openly advocating helicopter social media and internet parenting, just that as parents -- we should be paying attention to what our teens are doing and saying online.

Jessica Grossman, owner of insocial.ca and creator/founder of Findmykidsonline.com feels the same way. Falling back on her experiences as a child of the early internet age, she hopes to help parents literally find their teen online. From social media use, to full behavior reports, Grossman presents her findings as one would discovery materials in a legal case. When I spoke to her about her burgeoning business, she was candid about her history with the internet and what happens when you mix naive pubescent teenage brain with the gravity of the black hole of nothing and everything that is the internet.

"I am someone who has had to deal with a lot of harassment, bullying, and threats online, even before Facebook or Twitter existed," Grossman tells me via email. "I am also someone with teenage cousins who I fear will get taken advantage of. We're in a weird space where the people with teenage kids haven't had to deal with the internet growing up and aren't as well equipped to understand how it works, the dangers, (they know there is a general danger, but not specifics or what to look for) and don't have the skills to educate their kids in the proper safety techniques or red flags other than 'don't talk to strangers'."

From that, you may derive that fear itself is a driver in our decisions to study and learn our teens online behavior. Sure, of course it is. Parents always fear for the safety of their children, from the day they are born to the day that we die. More important than fear though, is emotional intelligence. Teens are susceptible to fall into common predator traps, behave like complete idiots online (including sexual harassment) and create an online history that they have no clue as to how it will affect their futures. To that end, I offered up my own 15 year-old son (a very active mobile internet and social media user) to discover what he was up to. Working in the space, I figured that I knew most of it. We have ongoing conversations about behavior online and how it can affect college applications and so on, but that didn't quell the curiosity. He likes to brag about trolling Trump supporters on Facebook, but what else was he up to?